Disappearing Collection Boxes

News about disappearing collection boxes is everywhere these days. Even BBC News ran a story on the decline of the blue collection box in the United States.

The Postal Service argues that picking up mail from collection boxes is expensive. Removing underused boxes is a cost savings move and a reasonable response to the economic crisis. The Postal Service is removing boxes with less than 25 stamped mail pieces per day.

Critics wonder if there is adequate analysis to support the 25-piece minimum and whether one reason for removing collection boxes — in addition to the minimal cost savings — is that the Postal Service does not want to be criticized for poor service. Fewer boxes mean fewer opportunities to miss a collection or to pick up mail too early.

Is the Postal Service thinking too narrowly and missing some of the value of collection boxes? The ubiquitous presence of the boxes is free advertising for the ailing agency. How much would a private sector company pay to be allowed to put a collection box anywhere it wanted to in the country? Millions? Billions?

What do you think? Is removing collection boxes a reasonable cost-cutting move or a strategic mistake that the Postal Service will later regret?

This topic is hosted by the OIG's Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).

Comments (88)

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The box closest to our house was a 4th and Loma (908914) in Long Beach, CA at a postal substation. It was regularly full. I have looked over a 20 block area and can find no more.
The box I refer to has been removed. It was VERY popular and had a roadside slot. It was regularly full or nearly full. What are you guys up to??
Thanks.

Most of the collection boxes I used to use are gone and some may have been unnecessary as there used to be boxes everywhere. But now there aren't even boxes in most shopping centers and you just closed a very popular box on mendon rd in Cumberland RI that was in front of the Dollar Tree. This box was near the entrance and you could pull in and drop mail from your car window. It was on a very busy road surrounded by thousands of homes and at least 1/3 of the times I used it I had to wait for a car that was already using it. Can't you see that making it harder to mail a letter hurts you by making busy people go out of their way to use your service? If you really want to save money you'd be better off changing to three day a week delivery service. Most letters can wait an extra day and the routes could be split up so some folks get mail on M,W,F and others on Tu, Th, S and any business that needs daily service could pay a small monthly fee for daily deliveries (since some large businesses have mailrooms and dedicated employees because of high mail volume. I can see why you took out some of these back street boxes but boxes on main drags and in shopping center are important even if the fall beneath your quota of 25 letters a day. Also because of your push to remove boxes you haven't been putting any new ones in Shopping centers and we have a major shopping area with a super walmart, lowe's, Aldi's and 4-5 others and there is no mailbox anywhere near this area. I prefer to mail my bills in and pay by check (and I'm not that old at 47) but as it gets harder mail the bills it gets easier to consider paying at Walmart or other methods. Sure you may have lost business to modern tech but now you are screwing your most loyal customers, People have switched to other methods because they feel they are more convenient so making you service less convenient seems stupid. As it stands now I used to pay and mail my bills twice a month now because I have to go out of my way I hold my first group of bills two weeks and just mail once a month, You are lucky I'm still using the mail because if the box I use now goes I give up and you can rot in the hole you dug.

We use the 21093 Post Office's three drive-by boxes for convenience. There were also two additional boxes near the entrance to the Office These boxes are heavily used and many times full. Now they have all been removed, requiring customers like us to park and walk some distance to enter the Office.
This is an unnecessary inconvenience. Please bring the boxes back

Drive by drop boxes @ 21093 were removed. There were 2 boxes that were consistently filled by users. Now there are boxes next to building you have to find a limited parking space for in a crowded tight parking lot.
Instead of removing boxes, there should have been more.
Bad decisions drive customers away from U.S. mail.

I have been using fedex for business mail because we have no safe way to leave mail for collection. Postal workers told us to clip it to the front of our business. I have personnel records and other confidential information that we mail. Onice again, I pay more to the other carrier because they are more reliable and meet the needs of the customer.

Good Morning, The USPS "cost-cutting" move of removing the blue mail collection boxes is a bad idea. This slows the movement of the mail even further. Since I do not own a car most of my errands are completed on foot. I am very familiar with the layout of my neighborhood and I can not tell you where the next blue mail collection box is. To mail a letter do I have to make the 25 minute walk to the nearest post office? Bad idea!!!

Our drop off box on Eliseo dr and Corte Cayuga Greenbrae,California 94904, was hit by a car and is now gone. Our community uses this box daily and want it back.
Can it please be reinstalled!!!
Thank you
Linda

I have emailed numerous times in the past two years --- to my City, Surprise, AZ., 85374 and they said to contact Postal Service, which I did, and then forwarded to another Govt. site which I was told to do in an email, why these couldn't be forwarded????
4 mailboxes (faded paint---looks GRAY, damaged by cars or trucks hitting them, USA Postal Emblems torn, etc., just a mess and not the standards of the USA Postal Service) and NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE TO repair/repaint or replace.
One on Remington Dr., Sun City Grand, Surprise, AZ 85374
One in Sun City West, 85375 (off RH Johnson behind the True Value)
One outside of the Albertsons, Grand Ave,. Reems Rd 85374
One outside of the Safeway, Grand Ave., Reems Rd. 85374
will be shocked if these are ever repaired..... or if someone will actually take
the time to REPORT these to the right office.
is anyone from the Postal Service reading these????? It's not just these collection boxes, they are all over, come on Postal Service do something about them.

I'm in the Bronx. I had a great deal of trouble with one courier. A rude woman who deliberately dropped my office's outgoing mail in a puddle when we refused to take a medication delivery for the Doctor next door. Courier "If you won't help you if you won't help me".
I called my Congressman, who put me in touch with the Bronx Post Master. His office apologized, and took my complaint. The woman (with a supervisor) was at my office to apologize the next day.

All of our blue boxes are gone along Wells St. near North Ave. in Chicago. As a receptionist at a local company, this would be okay if the couriers didn't avoid us like the plague. There are so many companies in this area that still have to do business with "snail mail" and there is not a post office conveniently located near Wells & North ave without a bike or a car. The couriers are non communicative and when they do choose to talk to anyone at my company they are often exceptionally rude. I understand your job is hard but you making my job harder doesn't help either one of us.

If your blue collection boxes look bad or need repairs, tell you mail carrier. When they scan the box during collections, they may add a discrepancy note to the CPMS data base that the maintenance folks should fix. Supervisors should notify carriers about this during morning stand ups.

We live in a brand new subdivision with individual mail boxes...but we have learned the hard way that putting up your mailbox flag is a signal for would be thieves to steal our outgoing mail. A huge amount of outgoing mail was stolen from boxes around the neighborhood ...one collection box put near the clubhouse would alleviate concerns and negate the need for people (most of whom are seniors in our neighborhood) to travel to the nearest collection box. Collection boxes are the safest way to ensure your mail is collected (next to going to the post office)

I can't believe, in this day and age, when concern is growing about global warming and melting ice caps, that the Post Office or any other government entity believes it's a good idea for individuals to have to use their gas-powered automobiles to drive miles to the nearest Post Office just to mail a letter or package.
And thank goodness I'm not elderly or I'd have an even harder time getting to the Post Office at all.
Some people suggest that online bill pay does away with the need for collection boxes. How am I going to use online bill pay to mail a birthday card to someone across the country?
To top it all off, we're supposed to be living in a 24/7 world, yet I can't drop a letter off unless I go the Post Office during business hours, M - F.
Removing collection boxes solves one problem while worsening other issues, so the cure is really turning out worse than the disease.

Huntington, West Virginia is an Epic failure on the part of the USPS. In West Virginia (25705) on street parking limits our carriers to working on foot; therefore, any outgoing or letter collection services are not available. The nearest collection boxes are far and few between, walking to one is never an option. The Post Office is located across the street of the
"projects" public housing ward; the area is NOT SAFE. Furthermore, the building is an old depressed shoebox....without parking, very little signage, completely void of outdoor collection boxes. Anytime of day the sidewalk housing the facility is frequented with a steady stream of individuals on foot, freely loitering, squatting, and/or sizing up drivers by.

I still send paper mail, and cards. Removing collection boxes only encourages people to use online resources to communicate. I only have one collection box near me and if it was to be removed I don't know how I will send mail. I surely won't take a bus to get to a Post Office. If people are forced to resort to online communication, less mail will end up in collection boxes and less postage stamps will be purchased. The USPS is cutting its nose to save its face. I have had many problems in the past 2 years with letter carriers delivering my mail to the wrong address, returning my mail sent to family members living at the same address for over 30 years and stamping the envelope "not at this address". Having mail sent to European addresses delivered to U.S. addresses and eventually returned to me. With all the system glitches and carrier incompetency I believe this is a big cause in people losing trust in the Postal System. You need to lure customers back not scare them away.

We are a small business and depend on our corner pick-up box to send out our afternoon mail. The time on the corner box was 5:15 and our business depended on that collection time. That time was recently changed to 10:00 am, which is detrimental to our small business.

Post office new effort to get rid of collection boxes is under way in Portland Oregon. New way of getting rid of them is to put a pickup time of 10am. Who has their mail ready by 10am. Who is going to leave their mail in the box over night. These boxes have over 25 pieces, but after posting 10am they go to zero. Good luck finding a box.

I use the mail box at Corner of 2900 Teesdale Street and Brous Avenue. It really needs to be replaced or painted. Many of the boxes have been removed from the neighbor hood. I hope that this one can stay. It would be nice to see a cleaner mailbox representing the U S Postal Service.
Thank you.

they should remove the old blue postal mailboxes npt because of the mail amount but beccause the mailboxes are old and ugly and no one is taking care of them. they are old rusted in need of paint. they should take time out to paint them!!

I can understand eliminating collection boxes where there is less than 25 pieces of mail per day, the rationale being that it is very expensive to dispatch a truck collect mail from these boxes. In my suburban community, with a population in excess of 100,000 people,there are now no collection boxes away from of shopping districts.
Thos presents a dilemma for the increasingly aging community where a large number of residents are retired and travel infrequently away from their homes. The customers are most likely to send first class mail, but have least ability to get to the few remaining collection boxes.
The practice of giving a municipal letter carrier the use of a vehicle for an entire working day, but not having that carrier collect first class mail from a residential letter drop box when a delivery is being made is wasteful, more wasteful than using distribution bixes and having carriers get to their routes by shuttlebus or private vehicle. This waste could be offset by having cartiers collect mail from individual resident delivery drop boxes.

The removal of our local pickup box will be a huge impact on this area where there are disabled and elderly folks who can't otherwise use usps. Sure we can leave mail out for our local carrier. Except she gets here about 7pm and the box is collected sooner. Is she trying to show management how busy she is? And how hard would it be for the local delivery carrier to pick up the contents of the blue box? She drives right by it daily. Does it have to be a dedicated driver that just empties boxes? We live in a mobile home park. Shouldn't each removal be based on need, not just how often it is used in a 7 day period. I am very upset about the removal of our local box. I use it several times a month!

Do you seriously think that the USPS owes anyone an apology for removing the old blue collection boxes? You've got to be kidding. When mass numbers of people opted to use Email instead of the USPS, decisions had to be made. Wake up people. Times change and you made your choice.

What do you think all of the ole' blue boxes have morphed into???? You know, the one's where the paying customer did 25% of the work that the post office
has to do when they don't drop mail in a box.
A. High Speed rail track
B. River barges?
C. Electric Car Charging Stations (Just the Protective Steel Bollards adjacent to them)
D. Ship Anchors
E. Counterweight for a draw bridge.
I simply find it hysterical that someone brings a single first class letter into the window so they'll
assure themselves the letter is on it's way!!!!
Talk about confidence in a delivery system!!!!!

Whee! I'm not at home right now (I'm at uni), and I just tried to mail a letter, which apparently is SEVERELY frowned upon by the USPS, except of course either from home or from a post office (I'm on foot and the closest post office is a mile away). I foolishly thought "well, I have to go to the public library, and they'll have one out front." Nope. Silly me...

I may be showing my age, but people of my vintage have much to worry about. We do not put checks in the mail for fear of identity theft, nor do we pay online due to fruad. Now that secure mailboxes are being eliminated, we must venture further afield and waste more time and resources. This was not a good idea for us.

<a href="http://postalsanity.com" rel="nofollow">Postal Sanity</a> wonders if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing……
We got the following quote from <a href="http://bit.ly/5Y3qkM" rel="nofollow">this article</a>.
“Mail theft is a federal crime,” warned Renee Focht, a postal inspector and spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspectors, a crime-fighting unit of the U.S. Postal Service.
She advises people to not leave mail — especially negotiable documents such as checks and money orders — in their mailboxes to be picked up by the postal carrier.
“Postal collection boxes provide more security because they’re locked,” Focht said.

This has been an issue for years. Postal should look at where these boxes are in proximity to an actual Post Office. The goal is to cut costs...maybe they should think about at what cost, costing costs will be...

Being a supervisor under a midget general in Georgia, his first objective was to remove all collection boxes in a city of 45,000 and only have one in front of two post office locations. He didn't want any missed and showing up on a report. He cared nothing about the customer complaints, only looking good on reports. What did they do with him? Why, transfer him to another office, of course!

Change is inevitable, but this seems an all or nothing approach that has not been well considered. If we are looking to save government wastage, there are more lucrative savings and obvious places than in taking away the lines of communication of so many senior citizens in one fell swoop.

My parents are in their 80's and when the USPS removed ALL the collection boxes in their neighborhood, they were left with unpleasant options. The collection boxes that remained were along busy streets downtown and always blocked by parked.
They have never paid a bill via the Internet until now. Rather than risk leaving their bill payments in the mailslot for the carrier to pickup, they have starting paying bills via the Internet for the first time. That represents the majority of their outgoing mail.
This boneheaded move is more likely to accellerate the demise of First Class mail than cut significant costs.

Important clarification
My last comment failed to identify the following acronym. It, this age of acronyms afterall...
So, the subject collection box identified in my last comment would be made of "clear" PET material, (recycled water bottles) which would visually show what was in the box at all times. Therefore, it would reflect the current Sustainability Initiative as identified in the 2008 Report!
Polyethylene terephthalate- PET

in the south ga district as many boxes as possible were removed regardless of volume. boxes near the hospitals in savannah which were overflowing every business day were also removed. when a district level manager was asked why she replied that most zero bundles occurred on the regular carriers day off, the less blue boxes means less zero bundles which means higher potential bonuses just follow the money

Bravo for finally waking up to this OIG!!
My old manager in retail used to say, "boys, I cant sell it, if it's not on the floor"! Duh?!?
Most of the Carriers and managers dont actually COUNT the mail in these during test periods, they lie so they can pull them out. My box is full every day, because lazy carriers&amp;supvr.s didnt want the collection boxes anymore.
My customers all complain, where are the neighborhood collection boxes?. They used to be on every corner, put them back, put an ad for priority on the side,
I don't know, maybe something simple like, it fits it ships???

our town used to have 32 blue collection boxes. the boxes were tapped daily no matter how few letters were in them. now we have about 12 for the whole town.of the 12,4 sit in the alley behind the post office. SERVICE has not diminished,just ask any mgt type at district or above. they are correct in one repect. we still provide the blue box. the problem is finding the _ _ _.

Just as lowering taxes HAS PROVEN TIME AND AGAIN to increase economic activity and actually generate more revenue due to higher gains on productivity ("Google" search "The Laffer Curve" to learn more), here's a great example of how lowering prices led to this company increasing sales so much that it has led to massive overtime as well massive profits: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-...- selfemployment The USPS would be wise to follow suit, as it's been proven to work time and again. We've alreadt seen the devastating effects of raising prices here in the USPS, and how doing it loses volume and thus profits. The fact is, we, like that company I illustrated, had and have excess capacity and we're literally paying people in some areas to do nothing. Lowering prices to spur volume that we could basically handle and deliver for nothing, since we have to process and deliver everyday anyway, is the right move. Raising rates and curtailing service (eliminating collection boxes, cutting a delivery day and reducing window hours as examples) is a suicidal business model. Doing the opposite, lowering rates and expanding service is the best way to emerge from this funk.

I still remember how I found out my local mailbox was gone. I walked down to where it always was, and there were 4 rusty marks on the ground where it was.
It seemed my only option was to get in my car, and drive to where there was a mailbox. All the milboxes were in a neighborhood where there were less than 10 houses per block. My street had 50+ houses, but no "significant" citizens.
When I looked at the new pick up times, I realized that it wasn't even going to picked up until late the following day.
At this point I realized that my mail was a great inconvenience to the Postal Service. As a good citizen, and a considerate person, I chose to make other arrangements, and drove a few more blocks to the letters destination.
The following month, I knew that I could just drop the letters off, and this time I didn't have to bother the postal service with printing, or selling me any stamps. If they don't want my mail, If my tranactions cost too much, then I can take a hint.

Put them back out at major intersections, or at least one on every carriers route. Pick it up once a day when the carrier goes past it, the only pickup of the day. List the location of the nearest boxes with a late pickup, if a customer has something hot.
Advertize on the box...click and ship, piority mail, etc...
Cost minimal....we have the boxes, 2 -3 minutes for carrier to scan and change out the tub, advertising value, and good will....priceless.

The decline in the availability and strategic placement of the traditional blue collection box is going to be another bad business decision by the Postal Service. Might has well change the name, because Service is no longer the priority of this business.

If it was a security related strategy, perhaps they should have replaced the steel boxes with a see through
design that would have scanned the customer deposited item with a time stamp, and thus, started the id tracking program for the item.
I trust the ole blue boxes are being recycled into a green related Co2 friendly use.
So the USPS earn some carbon credits for the fuel use "demerit" penalties they incur.
Think of the possibilities. The hypothetical new boxes
could be recycled PET, with various cots electronic
features. Or simply a multi-use container that could be picked up and whisked away to the high speed sorter. In any event, a green job could have been
created for a veteran, or a homeless veteran rather than simply giving them a blanket?

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